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BILL TO ORGANIZE THE TERRITORY OF ARIZUMA. 


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DELIVERED IN THlf SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, DECEMBER 27 , 1860 . 




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Mr. BROWN moved the following as an additional section, to^otne in at the end of 
the bill: . ' * 5 '■'l ' i'ooi^r. sslqftnitq a U To d*8q8 ot vj»b aidJ in "i/d vmIUit inarm* 


And be it further enacted , That the act of the Legislative Assembly of New Mexico, approved February 3, 
1859, entitled “ An act to provide for the protection of property in slaves in this Territory.” be. and the same 
is hereby, extended to/ind declared in force in the Territory of Arizuma, and it shall not be repealed during 
the territorial existence of said Territory. To which 

Mr. TRUMBULL moved to amend the amendment by striking out the whole of it after 
the word^ u that,” and inserting : ' bdlintJ adJ lo flOi^Dlitenp'J 

'''*4. /• Ji t)■" 7 mo.iw .<» q >70 • odj to w/d 7d LoiUifoilft lioocf ibaoslit 

% The law in respect 4o African slavery as it existed in said Territory at the time of its acquisition from Mex¬ 
ico, shall remain unchanged until its admission as a State. 


» iiuiiiiun •> i i j enu ni uijdm ji jjhij juii t. iiitt i n r, t il j j i _jq noLl 

Mr. DOOLITTLE said: Mr, President, I shall vote for the amendment offered by the 
Senator from Illinois, [Mr. Trumbull.] W'e have lived together under the Constitution 
of the United States, in slayeholding and non-slaveholding States, for more than sev¬ 
enty years, and have lived together in peace. That peace, however, has rested upon two 
fundamental ideq,s : first, that the Federal Government and the citizens of the fre,c States 
shall make no aggression upon slavery in the States and the other, equally fundamen¬ 
tal, that neither the Federal Government nor the slaveholders of the slave States shall 
make any aggressions upon freedom in the Territories. Upon these grounds we have 
lived together for these eighty years, and we may live for generations to come; but if 
the citizens of the free States or the Federal Government shall undertake, directly or 
indirectly, to overturn slavery in the States where it exists, or if the citizens of the slave 
States or the Federal Government shall undertake to overturn freedom in the Territo- 
ries^we cannot have peaep. . 

The amendment of the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Brown] is an attempt by a law 
of Congress to repeal the law of Mexico against slavery, and to legalize it; while the 
amendment of the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Trumbull] affirms that the law of freedom 
existing in the Territory at the time of its acquisition shall remain unchanged during 
its territorial condition, ., . , , ..p, j , •- t , i( , ; i { 

Sir, the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land and of every 
State, and speaks the same language and has the same force everywhere ; in Virginia, 
in Wisconsin, and in South Carolina. That Constitution was made for States, and not for 
Territories at all. It does not mention them, except to give Congress the power to gov¬ 
ern them ; but when extended over them by act of Congress it must be construed there, 
and everywhere, and always, to mean the same—no more, no less. 









9 


e: w 


'*'■*** ’O w 

If it contains any language which abolishes slavery in a Territory, it would abolish it 
in a State. If it contains any language which establishes it in a Territory, it would 
establish it in every State within its jurisdiction, for it tenders the same oath, and 
speaks in the same voice, everywhere—in every Legislature, and in every court. The 
wise men who framed it knew that the laws of some States would maintain, and the 
laws of other States would deny, the right of property in man. They foresaw that the 
people of free States and slave States might disagree fundamentally on this question; 
and, therefore, in a Constitution which was to be adopted by all, and to become the 
supreme law of all, they neither affirmed the right of property in slaves, which would 
have established and made perpetual slavery in all the States, nor did they expressly deny 
the right of property in slaves, which denial vrould have abolished slavery in every State, 
instantly upon its adoption. 

They framed all its provisions in wisdom, and none more wisely than those which 
undoubtedly refer to African slaves. They would not have the word “ slave' 1 in a Con¬ 
stitution for States which had just come out of a seven year’s war for freedom and the 
rights of man. It refers to them always as persons ; as persons held to service, not by the 
Constitution or laws of the United States, but by the laws of the States where held. 
State laws may hold them to service, and make property of the masters’ right to their 
service: but the Constitution of the United States does not do it. It allows the States, 
if they will, to do it within their jurisdictions. By the laws of the free States, minors 
and apprentices may be held to service till twenty-one years old. They might change 
their laws and hold them until twenty-five years old. In the slave States white persons, 
minors, and apprentices, are also held till twenty-one years old. Their laws might be 
changed so as to discharge them at eighteen, or hold them until twenty-five. So colored 
persons of African descent may be held to service till twenty-one, or thirty, or fifty 
years of age, or for life. 

The Constitution recognizes the fact that persons may be held to service under the 
laws of the several States ; and provides that if they escape to another State they shall 
not be discharged from such service, “ but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to 
whom such service or labor may be due.” But I desire now to confine myself to the ter¬ 
ritorial question. I may recur to this subject of the rendition of fugitives hereafter. 

Mr. President, so much has been said about the famous Dred Scott case, that it may 
appear rather late at this day to speak of the principles agreed upon by the majority of 
the judges, if indeed they were agreed upon anything, except that Dred Scott was not a 
citizen, and therefore could not sue in a Federal court. I will state one thing, however 
which was not decided. I believe that no gentleman who has carefully considered their 
opinions will take issue with me when I say that nothing contained in that decision or 
in the opinions of a majority of the judges can warrant any man in maintaining that the 
Constitution of the United States, of its own force, enters a Territory where slavery has 
already been abolished by law of the sovereign power of whom we acquired^ and es ¬ 
tablishes or guaranties the right to take and hold slaves in any such Territory’in viola¬ 
tion of that law. I will admit that a majority of the judges expressed the opinion that 
the act of Congress abolishing slavery in a portion of Louisiana Territory was void but 
they put their opinion upon the ground that the Constitution gives to Cono-ress no power 
of legislation upon that subject. Justices Taney, Campbell, Grier, Wavne and Daniel 
all concur in that. But with the exception of one or two sentences in the opinion of 
Justice Taney looking in that direction, there is nothing contained in the opinions of 
those judges which justifies any one in inferring the right to take and hold slaves in all 
the Territories, including those acquired from Mexico, wherein slavery was abolished 
not by a law of Congress, but by a law of Mexico, before their acquisition ’ 

I admit that one of the questions upon which a majority gave their opinion wa- the 
power of Congress to abolish slavery in a Territory, and in a Territory in which Ma’verv 
existed, at the time of its acquisition by the law of France. Justice Catron denied tbi 
power, upon the ground that the exercise of it was in violation of the treaty with 
Justice Grier concurred in the opinion of the court, that the act of Congress of la**? 
unconstitutional and void ; but he did not give the reason for that opinion JusticeXi 
son concurred in the judgment of the court, upon the ground that the question had been 
disposed of by the law of Missouri; that, whatever might have been the effect of the w 
„f Congress in the territory north of 36° 3<K upon Dr/d Scott, on his “t 0 If ^ trT 
by the law of that State and the decisions of its courts, he returned to the condition of 
a Slave. He concurred in the judgment of the court, but not in the opinion of the Chief 
Justice. Justice McLean and Justice Curtis dissented from the opinion altogether aid 
it is a remarkable fact bn one judge (Justice Wayne) concurred in the opinion of judne 
Taney, “ without any qualification of its reasoning or its conclusions.” 1 * J dg 

Now, sir, the point which I make, and to which I desire to call the attention of gen- 


3 


•a 


tlemen on the other side of the Chamber, is this : that there is nothing in this Dred Scott 
decision, or in the opinions expressed by a majority of the judges making that decision 
upon which gentlemen can base any right to take and hold slaves in the territories ac¬ 
quired from Mexico ; with the exception of one or two sentences contained in the opin¬ 
ion of the chief justice, which may be tortur&tl into that, there is nothing, absolutely 
nothing, in the Dred Scott case, to justify them in saying that the Constitution of the 
United States enters the territories we have acquired from Mexico, repeals the Mexican 
law against slavery, and establishes a law, or guaranties the right to take and hold slaves 
in those Territories in violation of the Mexican law. All the world knows that by the 
laws of nations, and by the decisions of all courts in civilized countries, the municipal 
laws of a ceded territory remain in full force until changed by the sovereign power to 
%vhom the cession is made. The law of Louisiana territory, as ceded by France, was the 
law of slavery until the passage of the Missouri act abolishing it north of 36° 30 r , and 
west of Missouri. The law of New Mexico and Arizona is the law of freedom until 
changed by Congress, or by some other body or tribunal under its authority. Suppose 
we were to acquire Canada, where, by the law of that country, or by usage—having the 
force of law—the institution of slavery is not allowed to exist. Do gentlemen on the 
other side of the Chamber contend that the moment we should acquire that territory the 
Constitution enters it, repeals the law against slavery, and establishes a law in favor, or 
guaranties a right by which slaves may be taken and held there in violation of its 
existing law? Where are the words in the Constitution which give any such power? 
If there are any which would give it such power there, they do it in Wisconsin and in 
every other State in the United States ; for the Constitution is declared to be the supreme 
law of every State, anything in their laws or constitutions to the contrary notwithstand¬ 
ing. This amendment, therefore, proposed by my honorable friend from Illinois, [Mr. 
Trumbull,] that the law of Mexico existing in this Territory against slavery, at the time 
of its acquisition, should remain unchanged until it is admitted into the Union as a sov¬ 
ereign State, meets the case exactly, and does not conflict even w r ith the opinion of the 
Chief Justice, much less of a majority of the judges, in the Dred Scott case. 

For one, I can never assent to the principle, that Congress has no power to legislate 
for the Territories upon this subject ; but I have discussed that on another occasion, 
and will not repeat my argument now. I turn now to the consideration of other 
subjects. 

The other day the Senator from Tennessee, [Mr. Nicholson,] whom I do not now see 
in his seat, stated that at the present time there was a very wide-spread alarm existing 
in the southern Spates in relation to the principles and ulterior designs of the Republic 
can party. He safd that it was not so much the violation of the fugitive slave law, nor 
the denial of the right to enter the Territory with slaves, which occasioned that alarm, 
but from the growing numbers and power of the free States, he apprehended that the 
ti^eywoul^ come when they would have power to amend the Constitution itself, and 
*gi«ref to the Federal Government the power to abolish slavery in the States. If it be 
tru'e that such wide-spread alarm exists among his people—and 1 do not doubt it—1 de¬ 
sire to ask that honorable Senator why he did not, while speaking upon that subject, 
embrace in his speech, which is to circulate among his constituents, the expressive lan¬ 
guage adopted by the Republican party as one of its fundamental principles at Chicago ? 
I will read it: 

*< That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order 
and control its own domestic institutions, according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that 
balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends; and we 
denounce the lawless invasion by armed* force of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as 
among the gravest of crimes.” 

If that honorable Senator desires that the people of his State should know the 
views of the Republican party, and especially of that man who is about to take pos¬ 
session of one department of the Government, why, I ask in all candor, should he not in 
his jjpeech, which is to circulate among his people, incorporate these authorized declara¬ 
tions of the Republican party? Mr. Lincoln has been elected as President of the United 
States, and certainly, if that Senator desires, instead of increasing, to quiet the alarm of 
his citizens, why does he not quote in his speech so that it can reach them—for ours do 
Mr. Lincoln declared over and over again in the State of Illinois, in the pres¬ 
ence of his own people? Why not let your people understand precisely the grounds 
upon which Mr. Lincoln and the Republican party do stand? Quoting into his speech 
the other day that one declaration which was made the subject-matter of so much discus¬ 
sion between Mr. Lincoln and the honorable Senator from Illinois, [Mr. Douglas,] in the 
canvass of 1858,1 insist that it would have been but just and fair to his own constituents, 
as well as to the President elect and to the Republican party, that he should have quoted 


also into his speech what Mr. Lincoln has said again and again in reference to this same 
declaration. Upon one occasion, in reply to the charge of Mr. Douglas, that he was in 
favor of making war by the North upon the South for the extermination of slavery, Mr. 
Lincoln said : 

“I do not believe the language I employed will bear any such construction ; I know that I never meant 
any such thing, and I believe that no fair mind can infer any such thing from anything I have ever 
said. ” ■ .. . ... • .... | flrJoi*.. LrtA 


If, indeed, your people rest under such apprehensions, why not proclaim in every 
speech that can reach the people of the slaveholding States, that the incoming Presi¬ 
dent declares: 


“ I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where 
it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to dp so.” * * * * 
•‘When it is said that I am in favor of interfering with slavery where it exists, I know it is unwarranted by 
anything I have ever intended, and, as I believe, by anything I have ever said.’-' * * * * , I 
hold myself under constitutional obligations to allow the people in all the States, without interference, di¬ 
rect or indirect, to do exactly as they please, and I deny that I have any inclination to interfere with them, 
even if there were no such constitutional obligation.” 


If there is one thing for which he is known and distinguished, it is for his inflexible 
integrity of purpose, unquestioned even by his bitterest political enemies. When he de¬ 
clares that he has no purpose, no inclination, and believes that he has no constitutional 
power, either directly or indirectly, to interfere with slavery in the States ; that he could 
not if he would, and would not if he could, I ask the Senator from Tennessee why not, 
in Heaven’s name, quote these declarations into the speeches which he is sending home 
to his constituents, if in truth, he desires to quiet that alarm which he says exists 
among them. 

Mr. NICHOLSON. Mr. President- 11 

The PRESIDING OFFICER, (Mr. Mason in the chair.) Does the Senator from Wis¬ 
consin vield to the Se.nator from Tennessee ? 

Mr. .DOOLITTLE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. NICHOLSON. I must say to the Senator from Wisconsin that in the remarks 
whi.ch I made in commenting on the Republican platform, I stated in explicit language 
as plain as I could utter it, that in thal platform they professed their determination to 
regard the rights which southern men claimed in their slaves in the States, and that Mr. 
Lincoln fully and explicitly accords yvith the sentiment and declarations of his platform. 

I did not quote the language of the platform in that respect. I stated, though, what was 
my view of that platform, and that it did profess explicitly to allow to'the people of the 
southern States, the enjoyment of their rights within the States, but laid down a prin¬ 
ciple outside of the States which, if carried out to its ultimate consequences, would 
destroy their rights within the States. I do not know what more I could kaye' dpne 
yvithout quoting the whole platform and Mr. Lincoln’s discussions wRh Mr. DotTGL^s ' 
which would have occupied more time than I desired to consume. r • ’ 


Mr. DOOLIi'lLE. I understood the Senator from Tennessee to say that their great ap¬ 
prehension was, that the purpose of the Republican party in getting possession of the Gov¬ 
ernment was so to increase the number and power of the free States that they would obtain 
at last, the power of amendment over the Constitution; and when they obtained that! 
it was their purpose to exercise it, and emancipate the slaves within the States. I un¬ 
derstand him to say that in substance now. 

Mr. NICHOLSON. I took the position that the policy, principles, and measures of the 
Republican party as avowed by them, if carried to their consequences, in the course of 
time, would extinguish slavery in the States. I expressed the apprehension that when 
the} had the power, by. the increase of free States, if they intended to carry out their 
purpose ot ultimate extinction of slavery, they would resort to that power and therebv 
bring about the result which their candidate, Mr. Lincoln, expressly said he desired 
should come about—the final extinction of slavery. That was my position 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. President the Republican party, as I understand it, maintain 
the reserved rights of the States ; that all powers not expressly delegated, or necessary 
to carry into effect the powers which are delegated, by the Constitution of the United 
States, are expressly reserved to the States ; and that it is fundamental to maintain the 
independence and sovereignty of the several States in respect to all matters winch are 
not conferred upon the general Government by the Constitution ; and that amono- the 
powers not conferred but reserved to the States, is an absolute, independent, sovereign 
control over all their domestic institutions; apd I undertake to say to that honorable 
Senator, that no Republicans within any of the States have ever expressed the purpose 
or the desire that the General Government should have the power to interfere wfthsla- 
very in the States, Not one. sir. , 



sir, it fiuds very few supporters. It is just as unfounded as that other idea which 
finds, I regret to say, so many supporters now in the South, hut which found very few, 
even there, until 1848—that the Constitution of the United States is a slavery-extending 
Constitution, and by its own force establishes slavery, or what is the same thing, guar¬ 
antees the right to take and hold slaves in the Territories. 


Mr. CLIN (CM AN, I avail myself of this occasion to ask the Senator a question, as he 
speaks knowingly on this subject. I have no knowledge of the fact, but it was pub¬ 
lished in a newspaper, and therefore I call his attention to it. He says that no res¬ 
pectable authority, or man of standing, adopts this view of Spooner. There was a pub¬ 
lication last winter in some of the newspapers, T think, stating that the honorable Senator 
from New V ork [Mr. Seward] had commended the work in very high terms. There 
was a note published, purporting to have come from him. Now, I should like to know 
ot the honorable Senator, whether he means to say that that was a forgery; or does he 
mean to say that the honorable Senator from New York is not such authority as should 
be considered of weight in the country on these questions? 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I remember, too, that the honorable Senator from Mississippi [Mr. 
Brown] also commended the book as one of great ability, here, on the floor of the 
Senate. He thought Mr. Spooner was a man of great ability and ingenuity. But, I 
repeat, this idea that the Constitution of the United States abolishes slavery by force of 
its own terms, in any State or Territory, or that it establishes slavery in any State or 
Territory, has not, in my opinion, the shadow of a foundation. The truth is, that upon 
either ground, the Constitution never could have been formed at all. It was framed 
by men who knew the words which they employed, and the meaning of those words. 
They recognized, it is true, the rights of the States to have persons held to service 
under their own State laws—not under the Constitution, nor under the laws of the United 
States, but under their own laws. They acknowledged the right, and made it the duty, 
that persons so held to service, when escaping into other States, or those States where 
such laws did not exist, should be delivered up on claim of the person to whom the serv¬ 
ice was due. But they have not declared, anywhere in the Constitution of the United 
States, that property in man exists by virtue of its provisions. They neither affirm nor 
deny that it can exist by State authority under State law. They leave, just as they 
intended to leave, each State perfectly sovereign and independent over its own laws on 
the subject of slavery. There was a provision, it is true, that until 1808, Congress should 
not have power to prevent States from importing or immigrating such persons as they 
should desire to have come into their jurisdictions; but the Constitution of the United 
States does not refer to them as property, nor as merchandise ; but refers to them as per¬ 
sons held to service. The law of the slave States makes them property ; the law of the 
free States does not make them property. The Constitution does not make them either. 
That is the truth about it. 

Neither Mr. Spooner, with his idea that the Constitution abolishes slavery, nor this 
fanatical idea that has grown up within the last ten or twelve years at the South that 
the Constitution establishes slavery, has any foundation whatever. I say to these 
gentlemen that, upon that idea that the Constitution establishes slavery, you cannot 
have peace on the slavery question; and yon may just as well know it first as 'ast. The 
people of the United States do not believe that the Constitution is, and will never con¬ 
sent that it shall be altered so that it will become a slavery-extending Constitution by 
force of its own terms. We do not usk either that you put upon it that construction 
which shall abolish slavery ih any State or in any Territory. We say, let the Constitu¬ 
tion be as our fathers made it; let it be neutral—neither affirming nor denying, and then 
you can have peace. 

Mr. President, one word further as to the purpose or designs of the President elect of 


the United States. He says : 


“Let me say I have no prejudice against the sonthern people. They are just what we would be in their 
situation. If slavery did not exist among them they would not introduce it. If it did now exist among us, 
we should not instantly give it up. This I believe of the masses. North and South. Doubtless there are in¬ 
dividuals ou both §ides who would not hold slaves under any circumstances ; and others who would gladly 
introduce slavery anew if it were now out of existence. We know that some southern men do free their 
slaves, go north, and become tipdop Abolitionists; while some northern ones go south, and become most 
cruel slave masters. 

“ When southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we »re, I ac¬ 
knowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in 
any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not do¬ 
ing what I should not know how to do m.vself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what 
to do as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves and send them to Libe¬ 
ria—to their own native land. But a moment’s reflection would convince me that, whatever of high hope— 
as I think there is—there may bo in this, in the long run its sudden execution is impossible. If they wer* 
all landed there in a day, they would perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping 


6 


and surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in many times ten days. What then ? Tree 
them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition ? I 
think 1 would not hold one in slavery at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough to denounce people 
upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will 
not admit of this ; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. 
Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment is not the sole question, if, indeed, it is any 
part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We cannot, then, 
make them equals. It does seem tome that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted ; but for 
that tardiness in this respect, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South. 

“ When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknowledge them—not grudgingly, but fully and 
fairly ; and I would give them any legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives which should not, in its 
stringency, be more likely to carry a free man into slavery than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an 
innocent one.”— Speech at Ottawa, Illinois, August 21,1858. 

Now, I ask gentlemen upon the other side of the cham.ber, those of you who do not 
speak upon this agitation for the purpose of making the agitation greater; those of you 
who do not wish to aggravate this excitement and quarrel; those of you who desire 
peace and the preservation of the Union, why, in the speeches that you circulate among 
your people, do you not include these declarations of Mr. Lincoln, made a hundred times 
over in his own State, and published throughout the whole of the free States, with the 
full knowledge of which he has been elected by such majorities to be the President of 
the United States ? If you want peace among your people, why is it not just and fair ; 
and why are you not called upon, if you desire to quiet the alarm which you say is ex¬ 
isting among them, to put these declarations into your speeches, and circulate them 
among your people ? 

And now, Mr. President, I desire to speak of what are now alledged to be the causes 
ol irritation existing at the present moment between the citizens of the slaveholding and 
non-slaveholding States. One which was introduced by the honorable Senator from 
Kentucky [Mr. Powell] the other day, I regretted exceedingly to see introduced at this 
time. The subject-matter of it has existed from the very foundation of the Government, 
but I believe it is but very recently that we have heard of it, in connection with this con¬ 
troversy. The complaint is this : that some of the non-slaveholding States refuse to 
surrender criminals who are fugitives from justice. I know that upon this subject of de¬ 
manding fugitives from justice, the States have generally adopted this as the rule of their 
action : it the crime with which the individual stood charged was a crime within the 
laws ot the State to which he flees, he should be surrendered ; and not otherwise. Such 
has been the practice of the oldest States beginning with Virginia, at a very early day. 
^Vhen certain individuals were demanded by the State of Pennsylvania to be delivered 
up as fugitives from justice, charged with kidnapping free negroes from that State, the 
Governor ot Virginia refused to deliver them up, and put his refusal upon that ground. 
So, too, in relation to obtaining money under false pretences. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. Will the Senator be good enough to give us his authority for that 
last assertion ? I should like to examine that. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. 

Prigg case. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. In the Prigg case 9 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Yes, sir. So, too, in relation to the obtaining of property by false 
pretenses. We all know that by obtaining property by false tokens, or false pretences, 
was not a crime at common law; it was a simple misdemeanor, a cheat; but by the 
laws of the State of New York it is made a felony; and since they have made this a 
felonious crime, they have sometimes demanded fugitives from the" State of New York 
to be delivered up by several States, by Ohio, and other States, and they have been re¬ 
fused in those States where the crime is not made felonious by their own laws, but re¬ 
mains as a simple misdemeanor. 

?} r ; ‘ T Maine refused Massachusetts, on the same ground. 

1 . r ‘ ' U0L11TLE * 1 understand my friend here to say that Maine has refused to deliver 
willtvih^H},?^ °n precisely the same ground. It was because the States were un- 
g that the State of New Tork, in which the great commercial transactions take 

of New ^Ym-V ^7 ^L \° mak<? evei Y cheat > evei T fraud, a f elony under the law 

. evv York, and make those laws a kind of criminal creditor’s bill, by which they could 

send out the process of the State of New York, and demand his lender from other 
States, to bring him within the jurisdiction of that State, and enforce the payment of a 

. t00 > between the States bordering upon the Ohio. A man, a member of the Le 

gis ature-I believe it was of the State of Kentucky-several v krs agT was indited 
in the State of Indiana for the offense of kidnapping free negroes from the State of In 

SSuf ullnCZlT the f S r 0f t Kent ?^ Governor of Indiana^/d a 

delivef m “ P ‘ ‘a\®°I e T 0r ° f KeDtuck y> aDd 0 th « Governor of Kentucky refused to 

iver bun up, and upon the same principle. So, too, it is true, as the Senator from 


You will find it referred to in one of the dissentiug opinions of the 


Kentucky has stated, the Governor of Kentucky has demanded of the Governor of Ohio 
to surrender up one indicted for stealing slaves from the State of Kentucky, which was 
refused, and put upon precisely the same ground, that the test of criminality should be 
the law of the State to which they flee, and not the State from which they escape. 

Mr. President, lay aside all this excitement that exists in this body, and throughout 
the country, on this negro question, and I undertake to say that there are not ten men to 
be found on this floor who would advocate the doctrine that a State, by its own laws, 
can make whatsoever it pleases a crime, and that its indictment shall be conclusive 
evidence of the guilt as well as of the escape of the person charged, and that he shall be 
absolutely surrendered by the Governor of the State where he may be found. The hoh- 
orable Senator from Kentucky may complain that it is annoying. So I grant it is. It 
is exceedingly annoying that the free negroes of Ohio and of Indiana can be kidnapped 
and carried into slavery in Kentucky, or elsewhere. So it is annoying for the slave¬ 
holders, on the contrary, that their slaves may be enticed to run away from them. I 
know all that; but, sir, there is a higher principle involved. I will read my authority 
for the statement which I made in relation to the action of the Governor of Kentucky— 
a statement which I find in the Louisville Journal: 

“ Governor Magoffin knows very well that one of liis predecessors, a Governor of this State, a good many 
years ago, refused, upon a requisition from the Governor of Indiana, to surrender a fugitive charged with 
kidnapping a negro from that State, the ground assumed being that it was no crime by Kentucky law. The 
offender in that case was, we understand, a member of the Kentucky Legislature, and he was demanded as a 
fugitive from justice by the Governor of Indiana for having gone over to that State and forcibly seized and 
brought a negro to Kentucky without legal process ; and the Governor of Kentucky, sustained by the Ken¬ 
tucky Legislature, declined, as we have said, to surrender the alleged fugitive, on the ground that he had 
done nothing which the laws of Kentucky recognized as a crime.” 

I do not care to go into a discussion of whether the right or wrong principle has been 
adopted by the Governors of these several States, in insisting that the crime for which 
they are to be delivered up should be a crime within their own limits or not; but which¬ 
ever is right, or whichever is wrong, it is a principle which has prevailed in this country 
almost from the beginning of the Government, and ought not to be brought forward to 
day for the purpose of aggravating the excitement now existing in the slave States, to 
prove that the people of the free States are unwilling faithfully, to all intents and pur¬ 
poses, to abide by the Constitution, and by all its compromises. 

Mr. President, another cause of irritation is alleged to be the non-rendition of fugitives 
from service. I admit the validity of the clause in the Constitution which denies to any 
State the power to discharge a fugitive from service from the obligation he owes to his 
master. I admit that it is one of the clauses of the Constitution which I have sworn to 
support, and 1 feel bound in conscience to admit the validity of this clause, as well as of 
every other clause in the Constitution. While I do this, I must say in all frankness and 
sincerity, that two questions have arisen on the construction of this clause of the Consti¬ 
tution. For myself, believing as I do that the Constitution of the United States should 
be strictly construed, if it were left for me I should decide that it did not belong to Con¬ 
gress to legislate at all on this subject; that it belonged to the States, and only to the 
States; and that it would be the duty of the States, if it were left to them, and to them 
alone, to make provision by law faithfully to carry into effect this clause of the Consti¬ 
tution. This same opinion was expressed by Mr. Webster, and by Mr. Rhett, of South 
Carolina, when members of this body; the same opinion was expressed by a majority of 
the judges of the supreme court of Wisconsin. At the same time, I admit, with equal 
frankness, for I have no concealment whatever on this question, that the majority of the 
people of the United States, of all sections and of all parties to-day, outside of the State 
where I reside, admit that bv this clause of the Constitution and the action of the Gov¬ 
ernment, under it, Congress does possess power to legislate for the rendition of fugitive 
slaves. The Supreme Court of the United States on repeated occasions, and the Supreme 
courts of Massachusetts, Ohio, and New York, composed, too, of Republican judges, have 
held that it belongs to Congress and not to the States to legislate on this point. I under¬ 
stand, too, that by the clear declaration of the President elect, (Mr. Lincoln,) he is one 
among the number who admit that Congress possesses the power to legislate on this 
subject. He said, in his speech at Alton, on the 15th of October, 1858 : 

« j suppose most of us (I know it of myself) beliove that the people of the southern States are entitled to 
a congressional fugitive slave law. As the right is constitutional. I agree that the legislation shall be 
granted to it, and that, not that we like the institution of slavery. We profess to have no taste for running 
and catching negroes; at least I profess no taste for that job at all. Why then do I yield support to a fugi¬ 
tive slave law ? Because I do not understand that the Constitution, which guaranties that right, can be 
supported without it.” 

Now although, as I have stated frankly, in ray own opinion it belongs to the States, 
and not to Congress, to legislate on this subject, still, I am bound to declare with equal 


8 


frankness.that the President elect of the Union has declared again and again that it be¬ 
longs to Congress, and that Congress is bound to give an efficient fugitive slave law. In 

his own|lapgi>i#igih»iv.! >o jvat odi iMdi f hnootn omne ofi: yIobIo£H<j aoqu fnq I»r; j: ,1m 

I would cive them any legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives which should not, in its strin¬ 
gency, be more likely to carrj’ a freeman into slavery than our ordinary criminal laws are to bang an inno¬ 
cent .ope.’’,* } <)rI oTOff) Jftrlt j ot 0 jljjtli.d ■ {I IT I bjlft flOUBSUD Qi:39fT Rllij I/O .VlJnUOD '»|(t 

While, in my judgment, reasoning as I do in favor of a strict construction of the Con¬ 
stitution, I believe that it belongs to the States, and not to Congress, to legislate; still, 
l am compelled to adtnit that, outside of my own State, the judicial authority has been 
almost unanimous the other way; and such is the opinion entertained by the President 
elect; I must say, however, that in my humble opinion, reason is upon one side, and the 
weight of precedent and authority is upon the other. 

But, Mr. President, what have been the facts in relation to the execution of the fugi¬ 
tive slave law? Where lias any slave that has ever been taken into custody, and been 
brought before a commissioner Under the fugitive slave law—where has any such slave, 
with the exception of.two or three instances, ever been rescued-or ever escaped ? In my 
own State a slave was arrested under circumstances calculated to produce an immense 
degree of excitement in the immediate locality. He was rescued ; and this fugitive slave 
law was, put into execution against an individual who was charged with being instru¬ 
mental in his rescue. I refer to the editor of a newspaper in the city of Milwaukee. He 
was brought before the district court of the United States, and convicted arid sentenced, 
and he Is in prison now. That is the only case that ever occurred in Wisconsin. How 
has the fact beeu in. Illinois, in Ohio, in Indiana, and anywhere in the United States, 
in reference to any person who has actually escaped as a fugitive, and been claimed 

UQf|f££, tlai^;•..{tor;,- ~ 0 .ti;\>n -nil toriJoffw Vi rtoi?.? •• • ‘b n .•! vr* ) Jo/: oi* 1 

But gentlemen s.ay that fugitives sometimes escape, without ever being arrested. That 
is very trjue indeed ; so they do ; but that is not the fault of the law. That grows out of 
the fyct that you own a species of property which has a will and legs of its own, and 
which desires sometimes to escape to liberty. That is your misfortune, not ours. If you 
invest your money in a species of property which has a will and power of its own to 
escape, we are not responsible for that. We are not made insurers of your slave prop¬ 
erty, against its running away. We are only required to surrender persons held in.your 
service when you claim them. 

But, Mr. President, I desire tc look at this in another point of view. The Senator from 
Virginia, [Mr. Mason,] the other day, tojd us that it was estimated in 1850, that at least 
$100,000 everyyear of property in negro slaves was lost from the State of Virginia; and 
he believes that tjie same is true now, that the annual loss of Virginia by the escape of 
slaves is $100,000,. Concede it. for the sake of my argument. What is the whole value 
of the property in slaves in Virginia, or what was it before this recent panic? On an 
average they were worth from five hundred to one thousand dollars apiece, as I am told 
by gentlemen, perhaps, half that now. There are about five hundred thousand in the 
State of Virginia. At $800 apiece, they would amount to $-100,000,000. Now, I ask 
wbat is the annual loss of the State of Virginia upon $400,000,000 in the escape of fugi¬ 
tive slaves? The Senator says $100,000. One hundred thousand dollars upon $400,000,000 
is but one fortieth of one per cent.; it is but one fourth of a mill on a dollar, growing 
out of the peculiar risk which men who invest their property in slayes run in the State 
of Virginia; and that is one of the border States of this Confederacy. Concede that this 
estimate of the Senator from Virginia is right, that the State of Virginia loses $100,000 
every year: it is a loss, I repeat, of but one-fourth of a mill on a.dollar, and one forti¬ 
eth of one per cent. Every species of property has its own peculiar risks. If you invest 
in land, in grain, in raercfiapdise, in stocks-—invest your property in what you will, it.has 
peculiar risks of its own; and the loss on this property, which, is subjected to a peculiar 
risk, growing out of the fact that the person that is made the subject of property has a 
will and a disposition to run away, is but one-fourth of a mill on a dollar—less than the 
peculiar risk winch is incurred on any other species of property in the United States. 

Why, Mr. President, suppose the slaveholders of Virginia were to form themselv.ejs into 
a mutual insurance, company, bv which to insure themselves against, loss from-the escape 
of their slaves : how slight, indeed, would be the amount paid upon that insurance! 
One fourth of a mill on a dollar of the slave property of Virginia would secure that 
property against all loss by runaway slaves. This peculiar Species of propert} r which is 
subjected to so slight a risk has peculiar advantages, too, under the Constitution of the 
United States. It is entitled to representation. That cannot, be said of any other pro¬ 
perty. lour hundred million of the property of Virginia is represented in the other 
branch of this Congress.; and for the benefit of this representation, is. it anything strange 
that those who own that property in \irginia should be subjected to some peculiar ad- 


9 


ditional risk? When that risk is so slight—the one fourth of a mill on the dollar—they 
have no. right, on that ground, to undertake to break up this Union, to destroy all its ad¬ 
vantages, and plunge the country into civil war. ' ' 

I ask, what will you gain by breaking the bond of the Union? If, under this bond, 
which now .compels us to surrender your fugitives, yon incur the risk of but one fourth 
of a mill on a dollar in the border States, how much risk will you incur if you break the 
bond, and we are no longer held to surrender your fugitives? Bring down the line of 
Canada to Virginia, and then how much risk would the slave property of Virginia have 
to pay to secure themselves against loss by escape? Would one. per cent-, five per cent., 
would ten per cent.: secure you against the loss from the escape of youridaves? 

Mr. President, let the bond Of this Union be broken, and the non-slaveholding States 
no longer compelled by the Constitution to surrender these fugitives,.and sla.vd property 
would of necessity retire from the border. I assure gentlemen on the other side of the 
Chamber, that those men who are regarded as the Abolitionists in this country ; those men 
who have denounced the Constitution as being a covenant with bell, because we were 
bound to return these fugitives to slavery, stand looking on to-day with an anxiety and 
intensity of interest which you cannot conceive. Their pnyers go Up, day and night, 
that this Union may be broken—that the free States Of the North may nd longer be com¬ 
pelled by the bond of Union to surrender your fugitive slaves. Thej 1, know what the 
effect would be; and they desire the dissolution of the Union, to produce just that effect 
in all the border States. Now, by the statement of the gentleman from Virginia, the lOss 
which is submitted to by that State—and it is aborder State—isbut one fourth of a mill on 
a dollar. Break the bond of the Union, and no ten per cent, upon the full Value of the 
slave property of Virginia would secure them against loss by the escape of fugitive Slaves. 

So, too, Mr. President, these very Abolitionists whose declarations have so often been 
undertaken by our political enemies to be identified with the doctrine and purposes of 
the Republican party, stand in anxious suspense, hoping and praying that the bond of 
this Union may be broken ; and for another reason : they know that the time will come, 
in the progress of population—and the time is coming with as much certainty as the re¬ 
volutions of the earth—that the slave population in some of the States shall become So 
preponderating in numbers and physical power that it can no longer be held in subjec¬ 
tion to their masters—that by the bond of the Union under which we live the arm of the 
Federal Government may be called in to put down insurrection ; and it is because thby 
believe that, if this bond were broken, the strong arm of the Federal Government could 
no longer be brought in to hold the peace and security of those States, that they desire 
tlmt it should be broken. 

They desire it upon two grounds : first, to compel the slaves to be withdrawn from the 
border States by easy and constant escapes, and by removal into the southern slave 
States; and when the whole mass of negro slaves shall be collected together in great 
numbers in those States; and when the bond of the Union shall be broken, and the 
Federal Government can no longer be brought in to put down insurrection, they then 
hope to see immediate emancipation in the slave States, with all the consequences which 
would follow. They are as anxious for the dissolution of the Union as many of the ex¬ 
tremists upon the Gulf of Mexico. And, Mr. President, while I cannot believe that those 
residing in the Gulf States desire to accomplish any such purpose, I cannot for my life 
see, and I do not know, what course they could pursue which would be any more likely 
to bring about that result than to break up this Union of States, and to overturn this 
Constitution. 

Sir, it was in view of this that our present minister to France, in speaking of the insti¬ 
tution of slavery in the Legislature of Virginia, declared that it had “a magnitude of 
desolating power compared with which, if the Federal Union should be broken, the pes¬ 
tilence that walketh in darkness and the destruction that wasteth at noonday would be 
a blessing.” This declaration was made shortly after the Southampton insurrection, by 
which all Virginia was startled, in her Legislature not long after that' insurrection oc- 
cured. Then it was that he said that if the bond of the Federal Union should be broken, 
the institution of slavery would have such a magnitude of desolating power. I tell you, 
Mr. President, that these Abolitionists of the Garrison school of the North are to day as 
anxious to break up the Union as the men in the extreme cotton States, or in South 
Carolina. 

Mr. President, there is one other subject-matter upon which I desire to detain the 
Senate a short time, and I shall have done. The Constitution of the United States 
adopted by the original thirteen States, and which has become the Constitution'of other 
States as admitted into the Union, is, so far as it speaks in delegating power to this Go- 
Verrlment, the suprenie law bf the land, anything in any State law or constitution to the 
contrary notwithstanding. In dll other matters perfect independence and sovereignty are 


10 


reserved to the several States. Every citizen of the United States, therefore,, owes a 
double allegiance; one to this Federal Government, and another to the State in which 
he lives. He may be guilty of treason against either; he may be guilty of treason against 
both ; but within their spheres each government is sovereign and supreme. If Congress 
steps beyond the powers delegated by the Constitution, to enact any law, it is absolutely 
void. If the State should step beyond the Constitution of the United States, which limits 
the power of the States to enact a law in conflict with it, it is simply unconstitutional, 
null and void. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. I should like just at this point to ask a question of the Senator from 
Wisconsin, if I do not disturb the course of his argument. If he prefers going on I will 
not ask it. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I have no objection. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. I understand the Senator to say that every citizen of the United 
States owes a double allegiance ; one to the Federal Government, the other to his State ; 
and that he mav be guilty of treason to either, or to both. Am I correct in that ? 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. Then I wish to ask the gentleman from Wisconsin if, in his opinion, 
under that form of government, a citizen can be placed, by a conflict between these two 
Governments, in a position where he must of necessity be guilty of treason to the one or 
the other, and therefore be bound to be hung any way? 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. No, sir; he cannot; for if the State declares that to be treason 
which by the Constitution of the United States is void, as being in conflict with it, it is 
no treason ; for the Constitution of the LTnited States is the fundamental law of your 
State, and any act or declaration making it treason to do an act which is in conflict with 
the Constitution of the United States, cannot be made treason by the State, although 
they may declare it so. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. If they declare it so, and hang the citizen because they declare it 
so, I should like to know what advantage it would be to him that in theory the decision 
was wrong? 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. The citizen must judge at his peril. If a law is enacted by Con¬ 
gress which is within the Constitution of the United States, the citizen will judge at his 
peril; and if he undertakes to break up the Government of the United States, and to be 
guilty of treason against the Government of the United States, any act which the State 
may declare in conflict with it is simply unconstitutional, null, and void. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. The proposition I put to the Senator is this: as a practical propo¬ 
sition, if the citizen of a State is, by the action of his State, which he cannot control, 
commanded to do a certain thing under the penalty of being hanged under the law of 
the State; and if that thing is treason under the Constitution and laws of the United 
States, is it possible, under the law of nations, and under the common sentiments of 
humanity that govern mankind, for the Federal Government to undertake to act upon 
the individual who is placed under duress to commit treason, instead of first relieving 
him from that duress by making war upon the State ? 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. If one of the citizens of Wisconsin (and, sir, T am sorry to be 
compelled to state that such things have occurred in some of the southern States) is 
taken by a mob and hanged, what remedy has he ? 

Mr. BENJAMIN. I am not speaking of mobs ; I am speaking of constituted govern¬ 
ments. If the government of a State undertakes to hang a citizen for refusing to obey 
certain orders, and if the Government of the United States, acting, as it says, upon the 
individual, and not upon the State, hangs him if he does obey it, I ask if that is a posi¬ 
tion to which the gentleman supposes the fathers consented that a citizen should be 
placed in when the Constitution was framed? 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. If the man is to be hung if he does the act and to be hung if he 
does not, undoubtedly, so far as he is concerned, it will make no great difference, [laugh¬ 
ter;] but, as a question of law, if he does an act which is treason against the United 
States, and is compelled to do that act by a law of the State, the State law is void, be¬ 
cause it is in conflict with the Constitution of the United States. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. Then would the hanging be void ? [Laughter.] 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. The hanging would be a certainty, [laughter;] it would not be 
void for uncertainty. I say, Mr. President, that where the Constitution of the United 
States speaks in language clear enough to delegate power to this Government, it is not 
in the power of one, ten, one hundred, or all the citizens of a State, any more than it is 
in the power of a mob led on by Judge Lynch, to annul that act of Congress ; because 
the Constitution and the acts in pursuance of it are the supreme law of that State and 
binding on every citizen and upon all the citizens in that State, and every citizen must 
of course, act at his peril. 


11 


Mr. BENJAMIN. I will not disturb the Senator further in the course of his argument, 
but I will take occasion to answer him when I get the floor in my turn. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. If this doctrtne is true, that a State, by its own mere motion, with¬ 
out the consent of the other States, can assemble in convention, by mass meetings of its 
citizens or otherwise, and by resolution dissolve its connection with the Federal Govern¬ 
ment, alsolve its citizens from their allegiance, and put an end to the supremacy of the 
Constitution and laws of the United States, several other consequences will follow. If 
one State can secede from all the rest, I suppose the Senator from Louisiana will not 
deny that all the rest can secede from one, and, of necessity, that gives to this Govern¬ 
ment the power to expel a State. The right of secession involves the right of expulsion. 
Let us go a step further, llow would this doctrine operate in time of war? In the war 
of 1812 with Great Britain, some of the New England States, it is said, were rather dis¬ 
affected toward the Government of the United States, and some of their citizens met in 
a convention at Hartford. At such a moment, when actually at war with Great Britain, 
if the doctrine of the gentleman is correct that secession is a constitutional right, that 
the citizens of a State can resolve themselves in or out at their pleasure, the people of 
Massachusetts could have resolved themselves out of the Union, and gone over to the 
enemy, without treason. Our fortresses in Boston harbor, built with our money, manned 
with our soldiers, and mounted with our guns, might, by a resolution passed by a Mas¬ 
sachusetts convention, have been withdrawn from our jurisdiction, and surrendered to 
the enemy—ay, our own guns turned upon us. That would indeed be constitutional se¬ 
cession with a vengeance! 

Again: the doctrine that each State may constitutionally secede, and become to all 
the rest a foreign Power, would open the United States to become the theater of all the 
intrigues of foreign Powers, like the petty principalities upon the European continent. 
“ No State can enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation,” nor “ enter into any 
agreement or compact with another State, or with a foreign Power,” is the express lan¬ 
guage of the Constitution ; and any such alliance or compact on the part of the State 
would be null and void, and, on the part of any foreign Pow r er, an act of war. 

But again, sir, take it in time of peace; apply your doctrine to Pennsylvania and New Jer¬ 
sey ; that they, by a simple resolution of their people, can withdraw from the United States 
of America. Why, sir, they would cut off all your great mail routes North, and you could 
not go by land from Virginia to New York without going through a foreign country. 
So, too, with Illinois. If this doctrine is correct, a mere resolution of the citizens of 
Illinois can make that a foreign State, and cut off entirely the Northwest from communi¬ 
cation with the East by land; and we must ask leave of Illinois to go to New York, or 
to New England, to Ohio or to Indiana, unless we go down around through the States of 
Missouri and Kentucky; and you propose to make that a foreign jurisdiction also. 
Where does this absurd doctrine end? 

But go a little further. Take the State of Florida, a little State down on the Gulf, 
with about fifty thousand white inhabitants, almost as many as there are in some coun¬ 
ties in the State in which I live. Look at Florida. We purchased this peninsula, and 
gave $5,000,000 for it. What for? To get rid of a foreign jurisdiction over it: to get 
rid of Spain ; to get also possession of the keys, and to protect an entrance for our com¬ 
merce into the Gulf of Mexico. We have spent $35,000,000 to take away the Seminoles. 
Now these fifty thousand people whom the good citizens of these United States under 
their laws have permitted to settle there, and with hardly half population enough for a 
Representative to be admitted as one of the States of this Union in full fellow'ship— 
Florida, for whom we have expended so much blood and treasure, the most favored, 
petted, weakest little sister, puts on great airs now, and assumes that by a mere resolu¬ 
tion of her people gathering together in convention, she can resolve herself out of the 
jurisdiction of the United States, take all our fortresses, upon w'hich, as a part of our 
great national defenses, we have spent hundreds of thousands, seize our own guns, and 
turn them against us, to enforce her doctrine of constitutional, peaceable secession. 

How is it with Louisiana, the State which the honorable Senator himself represents ? 
The Government of the United States, upon wise principles of great national policy, 
purchased of the First Consul of France the Territory of Louisiana, at an expense of 
$15,000,000. And for what? To obtain exclusive possession of the great valley of 
the Mississippi, and above all things to take the mouth of that river, through which its 
commerce discharges itself upon the high seas, away from the control of a foreign 
Power. Does that Senator contend here that the people of his State, to whom the 
Federal Government has granted its lands, and has permitted to be organized ahd ad¬ 
mitted as one of the great family of States, in a moment of disaffection or excitement, 
by a mere resolution of a convention of her citizens, can resolve themseh r es outside of 
this Union; absolve themselves from their allegiance, and become to us a foreign Power, 


12 


and take with her the control of the mouth of the Mississippi ? I tell you, sir, and I 
tell the Senator from Louisiana, that if any such doctrine had been understood when 
Louisiana was admitted into the Union, she would never have been admitted. I tell 
you, sir, that with any such doctrine as this, her people would not have been permit¬ 
ted to take possession, and to cultivate the swamps of Louisiana. Louisiana would 
have been held as a Territory now. The people of this country will not consent that 
she shall become a foreign Power, and hold the mouth of that river, which floats their 
commerce to the Gulf. They will never consent that the mouth of that river shall pass 
under a foreign jurisdiction, come what may. 

How has it been with the State of Texas? The Federal Government admitted Texas 
as one of the States into this Union at a time when she had a sparse population, many 
debts outstanding, with broken credit, and an empty treasury. Her independence had 
been acknowledged, it is true, by England, France, and Belgium, but she was still in a 
feeble condition. We took her as one of the States into,this Union. Her annexation 
was followed by the Mexican war, by which Mexico undertook to subjugate her to her 
dominion. It cost us forty thousand lives to defend her against Mexico it cost us near 
a hundred million dollars; and now, when we have made' her a great State, built her 
fortifications, paid off her debts, when we have raised her up by a friendly hand to the 
position she now holds, which will make her, in the end, greater than any 
southern State—greater than Georgia herself, thus far regarded as the empire State of 
the South—is it possible that now, in a moment of passion, “ when madness rules the 
hour,” the people of Texas can resolve themselves out of the Union and become to us a 
foreign Poyrer? 

Mr, WIGFALL. I ask the Senator to let me make an explanation. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER, (Mr. Foster in the chair.) Does the Senator from Wis¬ 
consin yield to the Senator from Texas ? 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I shall be through in a very few moments, and then the Senator 
can make his remarks. 

Mr. WIGFALL. I would rather they would go in your speech, so thatthe public 
would see them both together. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I do not know that I shall publish my speech. 

Mr. WIGFALL. The Senator is mistaken in supposing that this Government paid 
the debts of Texas. He is utterly mistaken in supposing that they have ever conferred 
any benefit upon the people of that State by annexation. By the terms of annexation 
they were to defend that border, and that people have been left to defend themselves 
from the time that they came into this Union up to the present time. There has been 
a constant war with American Indians. They have built no forts that they agreed to 
do. There is a fort that is in the process of construction at Galveston. The Secretary 
of War ordered some guns to be sent there the other day, and a free-soil abolition mob 
in Pittsburg interposed and committed an act of treason by levying war against the 
United, States ; and yet nothing is said about that. They have not paid the debts of 
Texas ; but after having, by treaty stipulation, by the action of the legislative depart¬ 
ment of this Government, by the action of the executive depart,ment*of this Govern¬ 
ment, recognized the Rio Grande as the boundary of Texas, this Government, under 
free-soil rule during the days of Mr. Fillmore, disputed the title which they had three 
times asserted and maintained, for which they went to war, and swindled us out of thirty 
thousand square miles, which now compose a part of Kansas and Nebraska. This is 
the faith that this Government has kept with Texas ; and as I said the other day. if we 
have been bought and paid for, I trust that Senator will come down, under the fugitive 
slave clause, to get his property. We are going out. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I have no objection to the Senator going out. All we claim is 
that the State shall remain. 

Mr. WIGFALL. The State will go out. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I shall not now go into a detailed statement of the amount of 
Federal expenditures paid on account of Texas over and above the war expenses. Ten 
million was given for her surrender of what she claimed in New Mexico. But that is 
not essential to my argument. As to the matter of publishing my speech I do not 
expect to publish it in pamphlet form at all. If the Senator on the other side desires to 
publish his, I would be very much obliged to him if he will publish mine too and let it 
go along with his tc his constituents. 

Mr. WIGFALL. Thank you, sir. I should suppose thatthe filets were material to 
your argument. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE A word, Mr. President, in relation to this doctrine as applicable 
to California, I believe the bonds are still out which we gave to Mexico upon the pur 
chase of California, by the treaty of peace. Do you suppose that when the fortresses at 


San Francisco, and other defenses of the State, are all completed, and we get our rail¬ 
road built across to California, that may cost us a hundred million more, California, by 
a simple resolution, of her inhabitants, can withdraw from the Union without our con¬ 
sent, and take our harbors and our fortresses and our great national railway into a 
foreign jurisdiction ? 

How was it in relation to the Island of Cuba ? Two years ago all the Senators on the 
other side of the Chamber were pressing upon the Government of the United States the 
purchase of that island, for which they were willing to pay the sum of $200,000,000. 
Suppose we had paid the money, taken possession of the island, and entered the long- 
coveted Moro Castle, mounted upon it our best guns, and completed ail its harbor de¬ 
fenses, impregnable as Gibraltar : could the people of that islaud then resolve themselves 
out of the Union, take possession of our forts, and destroy our commerce by the very 
means we have.bought or built to protect and defend it? Upon what ground did they 
press upon us the purchase of Cuba ? To command the outlet of the Mississippi valley, 
and to control the commerce of the Gulf. Such great national considerations as those 
were urged by gentlemen upon that side of the Chamber. But what would it all be 
worth? what is our whole Government worth ? what is American citizenship? what is 
American greatness ? what is American nationality ? what does it all mean ? Is it all 
a farce and a delusion, and has it been from the beginning? 

Mr. President, gentlemen sometimes complain that the Republican party in its policy 
is disposed to do injustice to the citizens of the South, and especially to what they call 
their social institution of slavery. What has been the history of this Government? 
Since the adoption of the present Constitution, we have acquired Florida, Louisiana, 
Texas, and the Territories from Mexico. We surrendered a part of Maine. We have 
given up our claim to a large portion of Oregon. The same party and canvass which 
brought Texas gave up 54° 40', and came down to 49°, giving up on the north Vancou¬ 
ver Island, and almost six degrees of latitude. We purchased the Louisiana Territory, 
and nearly two-thirds of all the good lands in that Territory have been given up to the 
social institution of the South. The annexation of Texas, the war with Mexico, and the 
acquisition of those territories from Mexico, including Texas, may be regarded as but 
one transaction; for they all followed close upon each other. Now, I ask you, gentle¬ 
men, in all fairness and candor, to say, of all these Territories that we acquired from 
Mexico, whether, by surrendering up the whole of Texas to your social institution, wo 
have not surrendered up to you an empire as bigas the kingdom of France? We have 
surrendered to your social institution in Texas alone more than your full share of allthe 
territories acquired from Mexico, when you compare the number of those persons who 
are employed under your system of labor with the free white laboring population of all 
the United States. When you speak of injustice it is imaginary, not real. You have 
had your full share, and more than your share, of all the Territories that we have acquired 
from the beginning to this hour, since the adoption of the present Constitution. 

Most of you say that New Mexico is entirely unfitted for slave labor. Why, then, make 
this struggle? The repeal of the Missouri compromise, and the struggle to wrest that 
Territory from free labor, and to force slavery upon it, to which it is not adapted, has 
brought upon us all this agitation and trouble. Why attempt to do the same in New' 
Mexico ? 

Mr. President, I am tired of hearing gentlemen complain of the injustice done to this 
institution by our territorial policy. There is no foundation for it in our history—none 
whatever, it seems to me. In proportion to the number of persons held in your system 
of labor you have had altogether more than your full share, in comparison with the free 
white laboring population of the United States; and you now claim further, not only 
more than your share, upon a fair division, but you claim what the Constitution of the 
United.States does not give at all—the right, to go into these territories acquired from 
Mexico, and to c^irry your slaves there, in violation of the Mexican law against it. It 
has been my purpos'e to show that the Constitution of the United States, even under the 
Dred Scott decision, docs no such thing; that there is nothing in that decision to show 
that the law of Mexico, existing when we acquired the territory, is not still the law of 
that territorv; that there is nothing in that decision which affirms that the Constitution 
of the United States repeals or abrogates it; and when the slaveholder claims the right 
to take his slaves there under the Constitution, he claims a right which the Constitution 
does not give. There is, therefore, no foundation for this charge which we so often hear, 
that we deny the equality of the States or the equality of their citizens in those Territo¬ 
ries. What do we deny to you that w.e do not deny ourselves? What single right in 
New Mexico have we that you have not got there also? You say that, this doctrine ex¬ 
cludes your social institution ; so it excludes our banking institutions; it excludes our 
manufacturing corporations. Your social plantation system is but a kind of close cor- 


14 


poration existing under the laws of your States, permitted or established by the local 
law. We deny you no right which we do not deny ourselves. We give you every right 
and every privilege which we give ourselves. 

Mr. GREEN. Will the Senator allow me to give a little illustration ? 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I will say to the Senator from Missouri that I am very nearly 
through all the remarks I intended to make. I will hear the Senator after I have done. 

Mr. President, the Senator from Oregon [Mr. Lane] seemed to complain on this sub¬ 
ject with great feeling, that the Republican party were denying the equality of the States 
in the Territories of the Union, purchased with common blood and common treasure. 
Now, sir, I stand here to say that if the Constitution of the United States gives to the 
slaveholder the right to carry slaves as property into the Territory, it follows, of neces¬ 
sity, that he has a right to have his property protected there. I will not admit a right, 
and at the same time deny the remedy. I will not admit that he has a constitutional 
right to take and hold his slaves there, and at the same time say that they may be law¬ 
fully taken from him. “That a thing may be lawfully driven from a place when it has 
a lawful right to stay,” I could never reconcile in logic or in morals. But I deny the 
right altogether, in the Mexican territories, under the Constitution, as construed by the 
Dred Scott case even. There is no such right established by it. He complained of 
what I had announced in a letter to Milwaukee, that “the free territories acquired, or to 
be acquired, from Mexico or Great Britain should remain free.” Well, sir, I maintain 
that such is the law of the acquisition of territory under the Constitution, and that is 
but just. When we acquire free territory, it is asking too much of us to convert it into 
slave territory. It is impossible, I say, that we can have peace on the slavery question 
on any such constitutional doctrine as that. You must consent to allow free Territories 
to remain free. We stand pledged not to interfere, directly or indirectly, with your in¬ 
stitutions in the States where they exist. Upon these grounds we can have peace— 
permanent, perpetual peace. Sir, that is peace ; and I repeat what I declared the other 
day, that non-interference by the General Government or by free-State men against 
slavery in the States, and non-interference by the General Government or by slave¬ 
holders against freedom in the Territories, is peace. 

Mr. President, the Senator from Missouri assumes, as a proposition which ought 
not to be doubted, that the Constitution of the United States enters the territory 
acquired from Mexico, repeals the Mexican law' abolishing slavery, and establishes a 
law in its favor. In addition to what I have already said, I desire now to say that 
this proposition is in direct contravention of the decision of the Supreme Court of the 
United States in the Prigg case, in which they held expressly that “ the state of sla¬ 
very is deemed to be a mere municipal regulation, founded upon and limited to the 
range of the territorial laws.” It is in violation of the decisions of the supreme court of 
every State, both north and south, previous to 1848. When John C. Calhoun, on this 
floor, first announced the doctrine that the Constitution of the United States, by its own 
positive force, guarantied the right to take and hold slaves as property in the Territories 
of the United States, it did not have half a dozen supporters, I believe, in either House 
of Congress. Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster, Mr. Benton, and the great meu in this body, de¬ 
nounced it as a heresy. It was so much against the established doctrine of this country, 
and of every court, not only of the free States, but of the slaveholding States, as w r ell as 
of the Supreme Court of the United States, that it found support nowhere. There was 
then no more respectable support to this new doctrine of John C. Calhoun, that the Con¬ 
stitution of the United States established the right to take slaves as property into a Ter¬ 
ritory, than there is now' to the doctrine of Lysander Spooner, that the Constitution of 
the United States abolishes slavery in every State within its jurisdiction. 

Mr. MASON. Will the Senator allow me a moment? 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MASON. I merely wish to say this: Mr. Calhoun lives no longer, and there is no 
representative of his State upon this floor. I do not mean to interrupt the Senator fur¬ 
ther than to say, that I never understood him, nor did I ever understand any jurist in 
the land, in giving a considered view of this question, as declaring that the Constitution 
of the United States established slavery anywhere; but I understood that great man 
and those w r ho concurred with him in opinion, to say this: that a slave is property and 
nothing but property; and that the Constitution of the United States would protect’that 
property in the Territories or upon the high seas as it W'ould protect any other property. 
It establishes nothing; it recognizes property because it is property. That I understand 
to be Mr. Calhoun’s view. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. And, therefore, I understand the honorable Senator to draw this 
corollary: that the Mexican laws abolishing slavery in the Territories, the instant we 
acquired them, were abolished or abrogated, in some way, by force of the Constitution; 


15 


and that a slaveholder from Virginia has a right to enter into those Territories, where 
slavery has been abolished, and, in spite of these laws, to hold his slave as property by 
virtue of the Constitution. That I understand to be your conclusion. 

Mr. MASON. The honorable Senator has no right to involve me in any of his legal 
conclusions. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. It is the very point we are discussing. 

Mr. MASON. It is purely legal. I only want to contradict—not offensively, but to 
contradict—any notion that Mr. Calhoun, or any other statesman or jurist, ever has, in 
a considered opinion, said that the Constitution established slavery. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Do I understand the honorable Senator from Virginia, then, to 
maintain that the Constitution of the United States, when we acquire territory where 
slavery has been already abolished, repeals or abrogates the law abolishing it? 

Mr. MASON. I say, again, sir, the Senator shall not involve me in any of his legal 
conclusions. I understand it to be a part of the public law of the civilized world, that 
when you acquire dominion, the laws of that domain remain in operation until the new 
Power abrogates or establishes it. Is not that public law ? 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I agree to that. 

Mr. MASON. That I understand to be the public law. I may be wrong in it. Now, 
what legal conclusions may follow in the peculiar construction of our Government with 
a fundamental law, or how it operates upon existing laws in a Territory newly acquired, 

I am not going to discuss with the Senator at all; and, therefore, I protest again that 
he shall not commit me to his legal conclusion as to the legal effect of the Constitution 
in the Territories. I mean to say this alone : that the Constitution recognizes a slave as 
property. We say, not that the Constitution establishes slavery anywhere, but that 
there is the same obligation upon those who administer the Constitution to protect the 
property in a slave, as property, as in anything else, wherever the Constitution is admin¬ 
istered. That is what we claim. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. President, I do not desire to be taken from the precise point, 
for in that is the whole point of controversy involved. The law of Mexico abolished 
slavery in these Territories before w r e acquired them. Now, when your slaveholding 
constituents are claiming that we deny their constitutional rights in those Territories, 
the simple question is: whether the Constitution of the United States enters those Ter¬ 
ritories and repeals the law of Mexico against slavery, and guaranties in some form their 
right to enter with their slaves? I understand the majority of the judges of the Supreme 
Court in the Dred Scott case to say that the Congress of the United States have not the 
power to prevent its entrance; but I do not understand any one of the judges of the 
Supreme Court to distinctly affirm that the Constitution enters the Territory and repeals 
or abrogates the former and previous law against slavery, and gives'the right to enter 
with property in slaves. I say, therefore, when you, representing slaveholding citizens 
of your State, stand here insisting that we deny any of their constitutional rights, you 
say it without any foundation, in my opinion, in constitutional law. 

Mr. WIGFALL. Will the Senator allow me to interrupt him? 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Not at present. There are one or two points that I desire to discuss, 
and I hope I shall be allowed to do so now. 

Mr. WIGFALL. It is merely in relation to that matter of law, and it is this: Mexico, 
you know, was a Catholic country- 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Well, sir, I (lo not wish to go into that. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Wisconsin yield the floor? 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. The gentleman may raise a question as to what the Mexican law 
was. Without any discourtesy, I do not propose to go into a discussion about that. 

Mr. WIGFALL. Well, admitting, for the sake of argument, that it was a Catholic 
country, then a marriage could not be solemnized except by a Catholic priest- 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. President—— 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Wisconsin yield the floor? 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I desire not to be drawn into an argument about the Catholic 

religion. i 

Mr, WIGFALL. You do not want to hear the facts. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. When I wish to enter into an argument on that subject, it will be 
on some other day and in some other place. I am talking now upon this subject, and 
do not desire to be drawn off. I am coming down to the real point in this controversy. 
1 wish to bring gentlemen right down to the point; and if I am wrong I want to sur¬ 
render, and to surrender like a man; and if you are wrong I want you to do the same. 

I support this amendment offered by the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Trumbull] because 
it affirms that the law of Mexico in relation to African slavery when we acquired it 
ought to remain unabolished by Congress, and remain the law of that Territory up to the 
time when it shall be admitted into the Union. I say to you iq all sincerity, and I be- 

V * .0£ - H M 





16 


lieve I speak the sentiments of nine-tenths, not only of the Republican party, but of the 
Democratic party who supported the honorable Senator from Illinois for the Presidency, 
that they will never consent to the idea that the Constitution of the United States, of 
its own force, or by any of its provisions, is to carry the law of slavery anywhere. They 
are willing to admit that the Constitution, of itself, is neutral. They are willing to say 
that it neither abolishes slavery where it exists, nor establishes it where it does not exist; 
that when we acquire slave territory it does not abolish it; and when we acquire free 
territory it does not establish it, or in any manner guarantee its right to enter; but they 
will never consent, no, sir, the American people will never consent to say that wherever 
the Constitution goes, slaves may go as property by force of its provisions, against the 
local law of the Territory, imposed by the sovereignty from which it has been acquired ; 
that it has the power (call it by what name you please, establishing, recognizing, guar¬ 
antying, or what von will) of overcoming the law of freedom in the territory existing at 
the time of the acquisition. 

The Senator from Missouri compares what I said upon this subject to the invitation of 
the fox to the stork to come to the feast. Let us look into history a little, and see. Sir, 
we acquired Florida; which was the fox and which Was the stork at that feast? We 
acquired the Louisiana Territory, and gave you two-thirds of all the good land there. 
Who had the advantage when invited to that entertainment? After you had got your 
full share, and we were about to enjoy that portion which was expressly reserved for us, 
just as we were ready to partake of it and enjoy it—what then? You snatched at it, 
and undertook to take it from us by force. To drop all figure, you demanded the right 
to allow slavery to enter- 

Mr. POLK. Mr. President, I merely wish to say- 

The PRESIDING OFFICER'. 1 Does the Senator from Wisconsin ydeld the floor to the 
Senator frdm Missouri ? 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. If it is for a simple explanation, I will. 

Mr. POLK. I desire to correct a mistake into which the honorable Senator fell. He 
has repeated twice over this morning that two-thirds of the Territory of Louisiana was 
given to the South. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I said of the good lands. I did not say two-thirds of the surface, 
including deserts. I meant the good lands. 

Mr. POLK. I think the Senator is entirely' mistaken in that, too. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I say, just as we were about to enter and take possession with our 
system of labor, the Missouri compromise was repealed, and slavery was invited to enter. 

I shall not repeat the story of the subjugation of Kansas. We have had a struggle for 
the last six years, growing out of that transaction, which, may' God grant, we shall 
never see again. Jackson and Clay, Webster and Wright, were no more. The only r two, 
Houston in this, and Benton in the other House, who took part in the compromise of 
1820 opposed its repeal. They warned the country what would be the effect ; but they 
were unable to successfully' resist it. What they' then predicted is almost history' now. 
For my own part, I aided the election of General Pierce, and in putting the Democratic 
party in power in 1852. I stood before the people of Wisconsin and invited them to 
support General Pierce upon the ground that the slavery question had been settled in 
all the Territories of the United States; north of 36° 30'—it was settled by the act of 
1820; in New Mexico and Utah it was settled by the act of 1850—and I asked them to 
support him upon that ground. It was upon that ground he was elected. At his inau¬ 
guration, while the oath of office was yet upon his lips, he repeated his pledge never to 
reopen Hie slavery agitation. The territorial question was at rest. The country was at 
peace. Suddenly, like a clap of thunder from a cloudless sky', the whole country was 
startled by' a proposition to repeal the Missouri compromise, and to open the Territory of 
Kansas to slavery'. Then followed a struggle to carry it there by force of arms. Would 
to Heaven that page of our history could be blotted out. I will not dwell upon it. Let 
us admit Kansas now into the Union, and close up that controversy forever. Now, I ask 
you, arb you not about to open a new point of quarrel ? 

Not satisfied with destroying the compromise of 1820, you now propose to repeal the 
compromise of 1850, in relation to New Mexico. You see what peace has been given to 
the country by repealing one compromise. How much more peace will you get by 
non undertaking to repeal another compromise—that of 1850—by which the territorial 
question was settled in New Mexico and in Utah ? Breaking the compromise of 1820 
gave no peace in 1854. Breaking the compromise of 1850, as to New' Mexico, will not 
restore peafCO’ now. The proposition of the Senator from Mississippi is, that Congress 
shall distinctly recognize and protect slavery in all that territory. I cannot give it my sup- 
P° r J- *j, ie amendment to it by r the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Trumbull! I fully concur. 

Mr. President, I have been drawn into a longer discussion than I had intended. I shall 
not trespass further upon the time of the Senate. 


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